hem by surprise. Not in this way had she expected the
thing that seemed dead to come to life again, so that she was unprepared
for the signs of its rebirth. Absorbed as she would otherwise have been
in Thor's narration, she could now follow him but absently. "How did
they get home from Colcord?"

She asked the question to keep him going, lest he should say the thing
she was so strangely afraid to hear. He answered like a man who talks
about what isn't on his mind in order to conceal what is. "I drove them
in. The old fellow sat in the tonneau with Rosie and Jim Breen. Matt Fay
refused the lift and took the train to Marchfield."

A little crowd at the court-house door, he recounted further, had
called, "Three cheers for Dr. Thor!" Another little crowd had greeted
them with a similar welcome on their arrival in Susan Street. A third
had gathered in the grounds of Thor's father's house, shouting, "Three
cheers for Mr. Masterman!" till the object of this good will responded
by coming out to the porch and making a brief, kindly speech. He was
delivering it as Thor drove up, just as the winter twilight necessitated
the turning on of the electric lights--his slender, well-dressed figure
distinct in the illuminated doorway. Thor could hear the strains of "For
he's a jolly good fellow" as, to avoid further demonstration, he backed
his machine from the avenue and turned toward the other house.

She seized the opportunity to say something she had at heart, which
would also help to tide over a minute she found so embarrassing. "Oh,
Thor, I hope he'll not have to suffer any more. He's paid his penalty by
this time."

"You mean--"

"I mean that I hope he'll never have to be any more definite with
himself than he's been already. You can easily see how it is with him.
It's as if he was two men, one accusing and the other defending. I don't
want to have the defense break down altogether, or to see him driven to
the wall. I couldn't bear it."

He waited a long minute before speaking. "If you're thinking of the real
responsibility for Claude's death--"

She nodded. "Yes, I am."

Again he waited. "He puts that on me."

"He puts it on you so as not to take it on himself," she said, quickly,
"because to take it on himself would be beyond human nature to bear.
Don't you see, Thor? We know and he knows that if Jasper Fay did it, it
was not to avenge himself on Claude, but on some one else. But now that
the law says that Fay _didn't_